Friday News in late January 2015

The Yemeni President has resigned recently as the Houthi insurgents are consolidating control over the capital of Yemen. The Houthi militants are still stationed in front of Yemen’s Presidential palace. President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi announced his resignation from Yemen’s government Thursday. Hadi’s prime minister and entire cabinet also resigned. Hadi granted the Houthis a great deal of state power and he gave the Houthis political concessions. There are the U.S./Saudi collaborations in trying to counter the Houthis. Mass protests have come in Yemen in 2011. Since 2001, the U.S. government has given massive aid to Saleh’s military and counterterrorism units in Yamen. From late 2011, the US-Saudi controlled Gulf Cooperation Council oversaw a managed transition process that left elements of the old US-backed dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh regime in control of key departments and placed Hadi in the presidency through a one-man election in February 2012. There have been systematic assassination programs in Yemen for years. They have been backed by the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operation Command (JSOC) and by the CIA. The extended civil war in Yemen has influenced the fall of Hadi’s government. The Houthi militias are part of the Zadi branch of Shia Islam and they are supported by Iran. They have seized the Yemeni capital city of Sanaa. Immediately after seizing the capital, the Houthi leaders signed a Peace and National Power Sharing Agreement (PNPA) with Hadi and various elements of the political establishment. The PNPA provided for the Houthi to be integrated into the existing governmental structures in exchange for the insurgency’s disarmament. The Houthis want to expand their power. When, in July 2014, the Hadi government enforced an end to fuel subsidies, the Houthis responded by demanding the reinstitution of the subsidies and calling for mass demonstrations against the government. There is the AQAP in Yemen too. The Saudis have funded other groups to form a secession movement where independent micro-states are in southern Yemen. The Americans, the French, etc. are watching these developments closely.




When I was younger, I did not know that much about the strong militancy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We all knew that Malcolm X was militant before and after his Hajj. When I got older, I found out about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s more militant views. Both Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. played very important roles in the black freedom movement. Dr. King wanted to use love not as a means to bow down to white society, but to use love to defend our human rights and to stand up for justice. Malcolm X changed rapidly ideologically from 1964 to 1965. Malcolm X made many speeches, but when he tied the economic exploitation to Western powers and when he went into foreign nations as a means to build up alliances (as a means to try to make America accountable for its crimes against black Americans), and then he was soon assassinated. The BPP was an extension of the Black Power Movement. The BPP had guns and talked about self-defense (which is a human right). Yet, the FBI wanted to stop them, because of their revolutionary ideas and they were making results. The BPP were cleaning up the communities, they were providing children with breakfast, they were giving health care to black people, they were helping the elderly, and they were establishing other community development programs which were helping the people. When these things were happening, the FBI illegally suppressed them unfortunately. The Black Panther Party also was strongly anti-imperialist. Dr. King was killed in the midst of him opposing the Vietnam War and trying to get his Poor People’s Campaign fully established. Getting civil rights and voting rights encoded in law is one thing, which was great. Yet, the establishment hated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. overtly when he opposed their war in Vietnam (which was a civil war. Herbicides, napalm, and other evils were found in that unjust war) and when he called for the radical redistribution of political and economic power. Dr. King was a threat and newspapers criticized him for his courageous stand against the Vietnam War. I always viewed Dr. King and Malcolm X’s views as converging before they passed away. Both men wanted an end to the Vietnam War, wanted the growth of black institutions, they critiqued capitalism explicitly, and they wanted a radical change in society. Dr. King gave militant speeches too (like his Beyond Vietnam speech and his Three Evils of Society speech back in 1967). I have great respect for Dr. King, Malcolm X, the BPP, and others who stood up for the freedom of black people globally.

Dinesh D’Souza is a hypocrite. He acts like he is an upstanding man, but he pleaded guilty to one felony count of making illegal contributions in the names of others. Obviously, President Barack Obama has an African American experience. He lived in America, he married an African American woman, he has black American children, he knows about African-American history (including black American culture). Hawaii, Illinois, and New York are found in America. Dinesh is an extremist and he is known for his support of the imperialist & terrorist Christopher Columbus. Dinesh is known to propagate other historically revisionist views. D’Souza believes in American exceptionalism, which is nothing more than Western imperialism. He is a known race-baiter. There is nothing wrong with using boycotts against racist corporations. Dr. Martin Luther King sympathized with democratic socialism (as he criticized capitalism), he was pro-labor, he said that he wanted a radical redistribution of economic & political power, and he was anti-war. So, we have to know history and fight for justice. At the end of the day, communities need independent grassroots organizing. We have to reject reactionary politicians and corporate foundations too. We certainly need more political education. We have to know about the system, so ways can be established by us to replace the current system with a new, fair one. The only way for justice to come is to work among the grassroots and build with other real freedom fighters (via alliances) internationally.

The war against fascism and oppression continues. The socialist Kshama Sawant made many interesting, accurate points. This current neoliberal reality existed before 2009, but the White House is not off the hook for its policies either. Certainly, we have to witness how and why we live under these conditions as a means for us to find ways to get us out of these conditions. The evil of reactionary Republicanism (with its supply side economics and its neo-conservative war mongering) is not the only problem that we face. We have to confront neoliberal Democrats who want to be more like Republicans (by them supporting the war on terror, the War on Drugs, the TPP secretive proposal, etc.) instead of them being independent thinking people. The evils of privatization and economic oppression are with us. We have to think not only independently, but we need to develop strategies where the masses of the people can be truly free. It is obvious that we need a living wage, we need Program 1033 to be eliminated, and we need the development of our public infrastructure, so our standard of living can be strengthened. We’re in opposition to racism and class oppression. We need revolutionary changes in society. This is not shocking to see the DOJ not indict Darren Wilson. There have been many cases where cops, who have executed unarmed people, have not been indicted. We can witness many examples of history to see that. The truth is that Darren Wilson is responsible for the murder of the unarmed teenager Michael Brown in August of 2014. This non indictment from the Justice Department shows how they really stand on this issue. This non indictment further hurts the family and friends of Michael Brown. This comes after the bundled job that the deceptive attorney Robert P. McCulloch has done in his investigation (when he admitted in public that he knowingly used perjured testimony in the grand jury proceedings. McCulloch allowed a mentally disturbed white racist to use her testimony when she has a known history of providing false testimony). There is certainly a massive military police mobilization agenda here too. Militarized police has been used by the state against the peaceful protesters for months. There are many charges where Darren Wilson could have been charged with. The police institution is not only corrupt, but the overall oligarchical system is corrupt.


I am a Millennial and many Millennials harbor some of the respectability views of Anthony Mackie. This “New Black” ideology is more pervasive than I thought. It doesn’t matter if a Brother wears dreadlocks or not. That Brother can still be killed by a cop if that cop wants to kill that Brother. Unapologetically black means that we are black and we couldn’t give a care about what anyone else thinks about our blackness. Also, we, as black people, never invented institutionalized racism. We have to know the origin of the problems that we face in the first place in order for our problems to be solved. Not to mention that superbly qualified black actors and black actresses have not been nominated or they have not been awarded. Denzel Washington never won an Academy Award for his role of Malcolm X in the movie “Malcolm X.” It is ironic that mainstream society wants us black people to be accepting of others, but they never lecture non-blacks to be accepting of us in a higher level. In the final analysis, we should love our individuality, but we should not ignore the struggle. The struggle is real and justice is not solved by individuals trying to accommodate to a system that doesn’t respect us. Justice is won by us struggling and fighting for our human rights and for our right to be ourselves without apology. We don’t have to apologize for our dreadlocks, for our melanin, for our hair, for our human expression, or for our flavor (or swag). We are Black and Beautiful.





By Timothy